The present invention relates to the connector for the harness of the string instrument such as a guitar for suspending the string instrument from the shoulder or neck of the player, particularly a mating type connector.
The band for suspending the string instrument such as a guitar from the shoulder or neck of the player is referred to as the "harness" and both ends of the harness are respectively fastened to both ends of the body of the string instrument.
Of the two fastening ends of the harness, the fastening end which is mainly connected to the body bottom of the string instrument is provided with a connector for refittably connecting the fastening end of said harness to the body of string instrument, and thus the harness is removed from the player's shoulder or neck or suspended from the shoulder or neck of the player.
This connector comprises a manually-operated engaging member fixed to the fastening end of the harness and a fixing member provided at the body bottom of the string instrument as disclosed in, for example, the Specification of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,794 and is adapted to engage and disengage the end part of the harness with and from the body of string instrument by manually operating said engaging member to be engaged with and disengaged from said fixing member.
Such a conventional connector as described above is constructed so that the manually-operated engaged member has a male construction to be fitted and engaged with the fixing member which has a female construction, and engagement and disengagement of the engaging member require pressing or pulling of the manual push button from the outside in the axial direction of the fixing member.
For example, the connector disclosed in said U.S. Patent Specification is adapted so that a pin is provided at the engaging member side to make engaging balls protruding from and fitted to the outside of the pin retract into the pin when the push button is pressed while the receiving chamber into which said pin is tightly fitted is provided in said fixing member and a groove which engages with said engaging balls is circumferentially provided inside said receiving chamber so that the pin can be inserted into and removed from the receiving chamber by pressing said push button to accommodate the engaging balls into the pin and said engaging balls are engaged with said groove by inserting said pin into the receiving chamber and releasing said push button to allow the engaging balls to protrude outside the pin.
Such a conventional connector as described above requires respectively the push button operation both when the engaging member is forced to engage with the fixing member and when the engaging member is forced to disengage from the fixing member, and therefore such connector has a problem that the handling operation when engaging and disengaging frequently the fastening end of the harness to/from the string instrument will be extremely troublesome and another problem that engaging and disengaging of the engaging member and the fixing member while pressing of the push button in the axial direction is poor in simplicity and convenience since a pressure applied to the string instrument to move it and the playing hands of the player will be unstable while the string instrument is suspended from the shoulder or neck of the player.
Such connector is available in a type that has the fixing member fitted to the engaging member by transversely sliding it as disclosed in the Specification of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,181. However, this type of connector is disadvantageous in that the fixing effect when the connector is engaged is poor because this type is not the so-called mating construction and on inconvenience in the handling as in case of the aforementioned conventional connector still remains since it is necessary to draw out the plunger in the axial direction when disengaging the harness from the string instrument.